A master storyteller presents himself in the 90-minute play “Kevin Kling: Unraveled.” Yes, Kevin Kling wrote the play structured on a series of stories about his life and he acts in it as well. With live musical accents by Robertson Witmer, this one-man work about loss, disability, and fitting in enjoyed its world premiere on July 12, 2025, the date this reviewer saw the performance under review.
Kling opens the play with a rap informing the audience in a tongue-twisting gush that everyone is welcome. What follows immediately is an inventory of Kling’s divergences from the norm. He was born with a left arm that is three quarters the size of his right arm and has only four fingers and no thumb or wrist. His right arm was injured in a motorcycle accident and is completely paralyzed.
Through a fluid stream of quotations from writers as varied as Mary Oliver, Rumi, and Shakespeare, Kevin Kling provides insight and humor to his dark truths. He advises those with disabilities to “work your quirk.”
As to his storytelling, a favorite was the one about four brothers who take a walk and find a dead lion in their path. The brothers comprised of an architect, doctor, spiritualist, and ne’er do well, agree to use this obstacle to show which one has gotten the best education. The result is that each of the educated brothers plays a part in resurrecting the beast, which then devours them. The fourth one, who has street smarts climbs a tree when he sees what they are doing. When the lion runs off, the lone brother climbs out of the tree and then quips, “Now we’ll never know who got the better education.”
The show is well balanced emotionally—Kling demonstrates that while he can laugh at obstacles thrown in his path, he can also get frustrated and suffer a dark side which he calls Richard III (after Shakespeare) or Dick the Turd. To conclude the play, he sings with his musician, “I can be a hero for just one day.” In this time of political purging of anyone who is not the ideal white male warrior, Kevin Kling is needed balm. Aside from that, this is a play worth hearing more than once because of its lyrical flow of language.
David M. Barber’s scenic design has a Buddhist appeal with what looks like a mandala with strings projecting into the great beyond/ceiling. A human skull sits on a shelf to one side of the mandala as if to suggest Shakespeare’s Yorick, the dead jester of Hamlet.
Kevin Kling is an award-winning creator of plays, books, and audio recordings as well as a regular contributor on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.
